Love the Brazilian people! and Japanese fireworks are EPIC

Hey peeps,

This past week was quite a rush, especially considering all the air that rushed out of our bike tires as we tried to get from place to place. Several days were spent wrestling with our bikes.....changing tubes, changing tires, messing with the brakes.....the dirt from the bike and chain grease still hasn`t fully come off of my fingers, haha. But things are all good with our bikes again, for now at least....

who moved my bike??

So the current situation is this. We have three people who have decided to be baptized next week (all Brazilians): Ariana, Alexandro, and Fernando. Shakespeare has appeared to drop off the grid, so we have been unable to work with him or even contact him. And some very unfortunate events led to our three yakusokushas (investigators with a scheduled baptismal date) being unable to come to church this past week, so their baptisms are delayed. We try to visit them as often as possible but they live an hour away by train and unfortunately we are not made of money, haha. But we call them all the time to see how they`re doing. I hope they will continue in faith, but it's hard to make changes sometimes.

teaching Fernando and family

The Portuguese is still coming along. Like I said last week, I feel like a new missionary trying to learn a new language all over again, haha. Still working on the Japanese but I am fairly fluent--by now to the point that I can devote a little more of my language study to Portuguese than Japanese. It`s a lot of fun. My companion has been helping a lot. And I have been especially blessed by the Lord in my language efforts.....there is absolutely no way that I could possibly learn languages like this without the guidance of the Spirit. I am so grateful.

Elder Ch and I have been busy working out some of the issues going on within our zone right now. Very eye-opening as we try to come up with solutions to various problems regarding other missionaries, their investigators, etc....I enjoy this kind of work, though. We have been guided a lot in our efforts to work things out with people. It`s good stuff.

rooftop part in Gamagori

Last night we went to a fireworks festival with some church friends, one of the best nights ever. One of the members owns a house down in Gamagori, a hillside town right on the coast and a popular vacation spot. It's a three-story house with a balcony on top, and we had a BBQ up there a beautiful view of the fireworks in the evening. EPIC!!.....Japan is famous for exotic and complicated fireworks shows. One of the climactic events was this ginormous fireball that shot up into the sky and let off an explosion that shook windows and set off car alarms. It was like the explosion of the Death Star in Star Wars. They lit that baby off three seperate times last night, and it was pretty wow.

The work is going great here. I love Japan! We are still seeing miracles, from finding random people on the street to having people randomly show up to church. The work is hastening here in Japan and across the world as the Lord prepares His children everywhere to hear this amazing message of peace and love. We invite everyone to experience the love of our Savior, which is beyond all human comprehension.

I love you all so much, for realllll. You`re amazing!

Peace and love,

Elder Naylor

ネイラー長老